Fascination about the 'other' equally applies to the appeal of the western writers to the readers in the east, which of course has a longer tradition. If an 'authentic' account of the insider of a community, of which there has been little documentation, is fascinating, I think it is only natural. However, we cannot say that all such accounts can be consistently successful. If the readers fail to relate to the account on a human level, if the author displays bad craft, the success, if at all there is initial success, is going to be short lived.
Thank you so much,this has been indeed insightful. What is disturbing is trying to evoke this fascination in a deliberately contrived manner and in turn reinforcing stereotypes about the West and East....for example:the quality of being exotic is inevitably associated with east....